Black History Month-Celebrating Dance

Dance is wonderful. It is one of my favorite things in the world despite the fact that I'm only okay at it on a good day. Who cares? If I'm dancing I'm having a good time.

Many of the dances known in the United States were created by the Black community. Blues dancing, Swing, the Twist, Disco, Lindy Hop, Charleston, Jitterbug, Moonwalk, Cakewalk, and so many more. These are dances that have shaped the look and feel of decades.

See below for a video of Lindy Hop dancers back in the day and books that explore the history of Black social dancing.

In the early 1960s, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater was a small, multi-racial company of dancers that performed the works of its founding choreographer and other emerging artists. By the late 1960s, the company had become a well-known African American artistic group closely tied to theCivil Rights struggle. In Dancing Revelations, Thomas DeFrantz chronicles the troupe's journey from a small modern dance company to one of the premier institutions of African American culture. -From book summary

Few will dispute the profound influence that African American music and movement has had in American and world culture. Dancing Many Drums explores that influence through a groundbreaking collection of essays on African American dance history, theory, and practice. In so doing, it reevaluates "black" and "African American" as both racial and dance categories. -From book summary